Uber leaks: CEO memo with guidelines on sex with employees

At a 2013 company event in Miami, Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick set guidelines for 400 staff on when it was and wasn’t acceptable to have sex. The ‘Miami-letter is currently still (in)famous within Uber and carries the title:

“URGENT, URGENT – READ THIS NOW OR ELSE!!!!!” and “You better read this or I’ll kick your ass.”

At the Miami event, Kalanick advised: “Have a great fucking time. This is a celebration! We’ve all earned it.” He also noted that “Miami’s transportation sucks ass,” Miami later became a battleground for Uber to serve that city. But that was actually the PG-13 part of the email. The mature content came when Kalanick wrote:

“Do not have sex with another employee UNLESS a) you have asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic ‘YES! I will have sex with you’ AND b) the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command. Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip. #CEOLife #FML.”

Kalanick actually sent the mail again the next year when there were 1,800 employees at Uber.

It is not the first time Kalanick is entangled in a scandal. Earlier this year, Kalanick had to apologise after a video (obtained by Bloomberg) showed him in a heated exchange with a driver who told the CEO:

“You’re raising the standards, and you’re dropping the prices (…) I’m going bankrupt because of you.”

Kalanick had replied:

“Some people don’t like to take responsibility for their own shit (…) they blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!”

Then he slammed the door.

And that’s not all. The Guardian summed up Uber’s other scandals, and they aren’t pretty. Uber recently fired 20 employees following a sexual harassment investigation and fired a top executive who obtained the medical records of a woman who was raped by an Uber driver, after journalists learned of the incident. Meanwhile, the company has been embroiled in a legal fight with Google’s former self-driving car company

Meanwhile, the company has been embroiled in a legal fight with Google’s former self-driving car company Waymo, and failed to help when a female Uber driver was assaulted by passengers and it underpaid New York City drivers by millions of dollars.

Speaking in Uber terms, one can only hope Uber gets his sh*t together. The service is just too good. Maybe it’s time for them to move on without Kalanick, and perhaps one of the multi-billion dollar investors will be thinking the same.